


The Devil's Backbone

by RedFlagsAndDiamonds



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Gangs of New York (2002), Little Women (1994), Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Multi, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 07:05:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14420103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/pseuds/RedFlagsAndDiamonds
Summary: A seventeen year old, Italian-born pianist is held for ransom by an Irish gang-lord.





	The Devil's Backbone

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you attempt to mix the cinematic equivalents of sweet and salty.  
> To all who might take umbrage at the idea of beloved children's classic characters being shoved into situations that aren't entirely wholesome, go find something else to read.
> 
> This was based completely around the screen-blazing chemistry between Liam Neeson and Christian Bale in "Batman Begins."  
> The "Little Women" half of the canon is taken (obviously) from the '94 film, but since I was reading while writing, a lot of minor elements from the book managed to work their way in. Everything else is from my own twisted imagination.
> 
> The timelines don't perfectly match up here, but I'm not going to sweat it.

 

In Hell, there was only one ruler.

They called him “the Priest” – although Laurie suspected there was no actual ordination behind the title.

If it weren’t for the fact that the man had a small son, the steel lining in his clerical collar, like plated armor, would have been telling enough.

It was, of course, possible that he had been a man of the cloth once, but now the name was an epithet of fear – “Say your prayers at night, or the Priest shall come for you…”

He was sure that Jo would have found the concept quite inspiring. For all that she sneered at her youngest sister’s daydreams, she had a rather romantic mind herself, but he wouldn’t have minded telling her that those colorful fantasies she had held once, casting him as the “captive” of some forlorn neighborhood tale was much more attractive in concept than in reality.

The little boy, Michael, was even younger than Amy, and for some mysterious reason seemed determined to view Laurie as more a playmate than a prisoner. Ultimately, he supposed this was a blessing, as he was unlikely to manage on his own – the massive, creaking jungle of wooden slats that these people called home was almost a nation unto itself, and three times as foreign.

Once the Priest had determined that their newly acquired hostage was at no risk of escape – difficult as it was to admit, Laurie had always known he had no stomach for violence or danger – Michael had begun leading him about the tenement as though he’d been given a new puppy.

“T’were an old factr’y, where they made beer.” the child explained, one small hand clenched on his rapidly dirtying shirt sleeve as they made their way through the tangle of tallow-lit, underground passages and up a slanting floor into the rabbit warren of crude little rooms.

“Th’ barrels and t’ings were in th’ cellar, and up here’s where dey ground th’ corn –“

It was hard to catch a word of Michael’s piping little voice, when the racket all around was absolutely deafening. Women, children, and men shouted in every imaginable language, screamed in pain, sang drunkenly, and fell into mad brawls, backed by the smash of breaking furniture and bottles.

Laurie was reminded briefly of the Marches’ hen house, all the feathery lumps crammed together between slats of wood.

The smell was proportionate. Worse, in fact.

Many of the brewery’s inhabitants seemed to be Irish, but here or there he noticed a beard or hooked nose that seemed decidedly Semitic, and even recognized a few words of familiar Italian – but it was the coal black Africans that gave him a bit of a start. Although, he supposed, it wasn’t as though they could be expected to go anywhere else.

They paused a while for Michael to confer with some other children, every one of them as dirt-smudged and threadbare as he was, and after apparently collecting on a debt, Michael crammed all his newfound wealth – three pennies, a little jackknife, and a twist of sticky candy, more dirt and grime than caramel – into his coat pockets and they resumed their walk.

“What was the wager?” Laurie asked eventually.

The boy smiled sweetly.

“Dey said Da wouldn’t keep ye alive past yesterday – I said ‘e would. So dey coughed up.”

Laurie swallowed with some difficulty, and forced his feet onward.

* * *

It had been Fred’s idea to visit the city – or maybe it was Harker, ever the playful braggart – but in either case, Laurie certainly wished he had followed Avril’s example and turned up his nose at their wild and certainly exaggerated tales of the New York Bowery.

But he had been weak, and fallen prey to their taunts at preferring the life of a woman, and soon enough found himself on a steamer out of Boston harbor bound for Manhattan.

The street was dirty and grey, a burst of color present occasionally in a barber’s pole or the washing hung from windows overhead, but everywhere there was absolute filth, and Laurie began to notice the lifelong, unpleasant feeling of “otherness” settle over him, a sense of misbelonging. Most of the people lining the street wore rags or tattered garments that were quite at odds with his own waistcoat and wool trousers, and there was no disguising that he and his companions washed often with soap.

Fred and Harker, however, had eyes only for passing women, particularly those of a somewhat theatrical mien.

“Look on it like this, Laurence,” Fred had promised cheerfully, clapping him on the shoulder as they pushed into the first pub on view, a clapboard building with flaking paint, who’s rudely scrawled sign proclaimed simply,  _ Satan’s Circus. _

“ - when you get home to Concord, your bookish little damsel will be deeply grateful for your education.”

He wasn’t fully cognizant of Fred’s meaning until they were inside the establishment, and noticed two women near a side table. One was wearing a blue corset. Robin’s egg blue, Laurie decided, though it was strange that he noticed at all. The most noticeable things about both girls were their legs. Stark bare, from the toes to the thigh, and he immediately felt his face start to burn.

The room was hot and swollen with humanity, and smelled heavily of beer, raw meat, and men. Opposite the bar, several musicians with fiddles were playing something lively as a bowler-hatted man sang solo, many of the patrons joining in, off key, for each chorus.

The bar itself was stocked with over a dozen large barrels, and on the counter sat a cask on it’s side, clearly marked “All Sorts.” The barkeep had affixed a large funnel to the lid, and was pouring in a sickening mess of un-drunk beer and the dregs of abandoned glasses, while arguing customers shoved back and forth for a chance to latch their mouths on the spout intended to dispense the swill.

However, even more alarming was the large glass jar set beside, of the sort that sweet Hannah back at Orchard House might have used to keep maple cookies. But inside this jar, suspended among a reddish pickle of alcohol, were dozens of human ears.

The blood that had heated Laurie’s face only minutes before drained away just as quickly, leaving him ghost pale.

Both ladies – if so they could be called - quickly lost their winking interest in the boys when several check-trousered, top-hatted dandies swept past, collecting all manner of street-walking beauties on their arms. Evidently, there was some local hierarchy being observed that they had intruded upon, leaving Fred and Harker somewhat put out.

Laurie shunted himself into a corner, equal parts relieved and amused that the so-called free-world of the Bowery hadn’t proved to be quite the orgiastic fairyland that his compatriots had envisioned - though he still wasn’t certain how he was going to explain this to Grandfather when word of the escapade undoubtedly reached the old man’s ear. Having family connections to the Dean often proved a curse as well as an advantage.

However, he had little time to think about the matter, before a shout went up like a menagerie ape, and their foppish rivals for the tarts’ attentions threw themselves towards a group of ragtag men near the bar. Several women screamed, tables were overturned as other patrons – all of them, Laurie belatedly noticed, ropey with muscle and covered in scars - shoved aside their hard drink and jostled into the fray, exposing thick fire axes, iron pipe, wooden planks riddled with nails, any thing to conceivably be used as a weapon.

“ _ For Mose’s blood!”  _ someone roared.

“ _ Plug the micks! Plug ‘em!” _

A wild axe blow split the communal barrel on the counter, and the foul smelling mix of beer and liquor splashed over the floorboards until the brawlers, distracted by the heat of combat, began slipping and falling into the amber colored lake, their grapple never halting for even a moment.

Soon blood joined the spilled drink, and like bulls on a field it seemed to madden them. A stringy-haired man with a grizzled beard, his striped shirt hanging loose from his trousers, hit the floor on his thick belly with an impressive crash, and in his rage at the indignity fixed both eyes on Fred as he cowered behind one of the many overturned tables. Bloodlust, it seemed, made the thug blind to friend, foe, or innocent, because he rose with a howl like one of the Viking berserkers in Jo’s so-loved novels, and lunged for Fred’s hapless form, a lead shovel raised overhead.

Laurie couldn’t be sure what possessed him in those few precious seconds, except that his silly English friend had no business dying in so wretched a manner, and before he’d quite thought his actions through he had dived from his own hiding place and shoved Fred to safety with a warning cry, only for a heavy impact to suddenly come down on his own skull, and afterward he knew nothing else.

*

The floor was gritty, and smelled vaguely of manure, but as Laurie gradually returned to consciousness he realized that the stink only grew worse. Sweat and ordure and over-trod dirt permeated the hot, stagnant air, and it was just as the greyish fog was starting to clear from his vision that something moist and slippery nudged his ear with a snuffling grunt.

“Get back, ye brute!” a harsh voice screeched suddenly, the sound nearly bursting his ears.

“Back, I said! Ye’ll be eatin’ soon enough! – Mcgloin! ‘E’s stirrin’, tell Vallon sharpish!”

His head anxiously protesting every movement, Laurie began a faint attempt to sit up, only to find himself eye to eye with the sagging, bristly black face of a massive boar, who snorted wetly in greeting.

“Come ‘ere, ye wretched hog!” hollered the speaker once again – a hunched, white-haired woman with skin exactly the texture of an unpeeled potato.

With a reluctant grunt, the pig was tugged back to it’s mistress’s side by means of a rope looped around it’s fat neck, as she resumed her seat on a little stool with the aid of a knobby, black walking stick, quite affecting the most grisly likeness of Una and her lion that Laurie could ever have imagined.

“If ye’ve any mind lad, you’ll sit still and be silent ‘til yer spoken to.”

He wasn’t certain what to make of that speech, and had quite decided he’d rather not know by the time the door – two halves of a barrel stacked over top of each other – was forced open across the difficult dirt ground, and a pair of brawny ruffians ambled inside, hammers and axes clutched in their ham-fists. Both sets of shoulders were wide enough to almost fill the whole little cavern – for that was what it must be, tallow candles standing on tables and benches illuminating the roughly dug walls of pressed soil and rock.

“Damn lucky ye’ve got a thick skull – not tha’ it’ll likely save ye from the ghoul gangs when we’re through wit’ ye –“ one of them growled, a giant with thick chestnut muttonchops who fondled a knife promisingly.

“Egh, ye’re wastin’ time, Jack.” the other sneered. “He’ll say ‘a same as all the rest – ‘know nothin’, know nothin’’ – you nancy-sons o’ bitches must be ‘alf addled fer all you don’t know.”

A few chuckles circled the room, and with an unpleasant twist of his stomach Laurie realized that unless he could offer these two particular brutes whatever they were after – and he was already quite confused on that point – he could be destined for a far more grisly fate than being struck over the head with a spade.

“If- if it’s money you want, my relations have more than ample to secure my –“

“Eh, we’ll get to that, laddie.” the larger of the two – Jack, seemingly – interrupted crisply.

“Fer now yer hide’s only worth what ye know o’ the butcher’s plans fer Holy Week; yer boys in Bayard Street already gave the game away, and we all knows Bill likes ‘is meat tender.”

The blade tip poked at Laurie’s cheekbone, and before he could scramble backwards the other behemoth had grabbed both of his arms and held him firm from behind.

“I’ll wager the butcher’s like any man –‘e talks when ‘e’s happy. So you wag yer tongue fer me now and speak sharpish, or I’ll ‘ave you singin’ like a moon-gazer with two pricks up ‘er –“

“Jesu, enough.” a new, heavy voice rumbled from the doorway, and Laurie managed a shuddering breath when Jack lowered the knife with a scowl and stepped aside in deference to the newcomer.

If the others were large, than this man was nearly a goliath, a black tunic and greying shirt sleeves constraining sinew and thick muscle. Dark hair streaked with grey surrounded a strong brow and piercing green eyes, which, curiously, were forked with lines, to suggest that he often smiled.

For now, he wore a stony expression of disgust that was only exacerbated by the squeals from the man keeping Laurie trussed, when a heavy fist rammed upward into his nose.

“How many times ‘as it been now?” he snarled, turning to Jack, who seemed to have the good sense to hold his tongue, though his eyes flashed defiantly.

“The lad’s too soft tae be native shite, and if he’s worth anythin’, it’s likely ta be more if we send ‘im back whole, yes?”

Jack sheathed his knife, backing to the door.

“’Tis yer say, Vallon –“

“- and mind yer tongue when ye speak tae yer betters – tha’ Lord gives, ‘e can take away, and I’m yer God i’ this land, Jack-lad. Remember that.”

“Aye.”  he muttered, shouldering his spiked hammer as he ducked back through the doorway, while his companion followed behind, still clutching his mashed face and whimpering.

Immediately they were left in a tense silence, broken only by the snuffling of the hog and Laurie’s fraught breathing.

“So… what are ye?” the giant, this Vallon, grunted somewhat absentmindedly, and he felt quite certain he wasn’t meant to answer.

“Not one o’ Bill’s bootlickers – just a piece o’ veal off Fifth Avenue, eh?”

A big hand caught his jaw, and Laurie managed to keep his eyes downcast towards the white striped priest collar for half a moment before losing the battle, and meeting Vallon’s gaze full on.

“Well… if ye’ve got palm grease tae spare, we’ll soon make a trade. For now, boy, ye can leave behind yer milk and honey and start prayin’ to the only power tha’ can save you; and even then, ye’d do best tae call me ‘sir.’”

* * *

“Ge’ up! Ge’ up!” a bright, overeager voice squealed, pulling Laurie blearily out of a restless sleep to find Michael shaking his shoulder with a thrilled grin.

“Deidre’s a mam! C’mon!”

Still fuzzy from unconsciousness, he offered no struggle to letting the boy tug him along, out of the two little dug-out rooms they shared with Michael’s father, and through the ever-changing maze of corridors.

It couldn’t have been daylight yet – the sun hadn’t begun bleeding through the wall slats to the north side of the building – but many of the inhabitants were already awake or still stirring from the previous night. Michael called out bright hullos to certain men and women, those who weren’t fighting or senseless from drink, and many even smiled back or ruffled his thin hair.

It had seemed strange, only days before, to think that there could be any loyalty between villains that could put the worst of Jo’s beloved penny dreadfuls to shame, but many seemed devoted to the Priest and his little son. It might not be so odd when considered rationally, the more skeptical part of his mind spoke up – the slum appeared to have a law unto itself, and Vallon was it’s primary magistrate. Even the lesser tribes of criminals who staked claims throughout the building – the Shirt-Tails in the third storey, the Forty Thieves at the front-facing gate, and all manner of others – they all made their allegiances to the Priest.

But despite this deference, Laurie was forced to concede, there were many in Vallon’s inner circle who seemed to feel genuine fondness for father and son.

Only the day before, when his host had been away (sitting in judgment on an incident in Murderer’s Row, Michael had told him disinterestedly) they had been called on by a rather pretty young woman, all milky skin and a mop of disheveled black curls crowning her head, but when she smiled Laurie had been given a bit of a start; each of her teeth had been filed to a sharp, triangular point, so that she gave the air of a wild animal. But Michael, seemingly unafraid, had trotted over and thrown his spindly little arms around her slim waist, as if greeting a favorite aunt, and with a playful tap to his nose the demon-faced girl had gifted him with a pouch of freshly boiled toffee.

However, Laurie was dragged from his considerations when Michael pulled him to one of the many little alcoves claimed as living quarters – sometimes by entire families – and pushed aside the rank curtain that served as a door.

He immediately recognized a familiar mewing, as the boy dropped down beside a pile of torn newspapers with a coo of fascination. At the center of the nest, a simply enormous tabby cat, missing one ear and a back paw, lay quietly nursing a pile of newborn kittens, all squeaking and pawing at each other blindly.

One of the little balls of downy fur was scooped up and deposited in his hands before he could protest, and as it nuzzled against his palm Laurie couldn’t fight away a sudden aching for home – watching Beth tease her own tiny cats with bits of string, or allowing Jo to carry them across the hedge in her arms when he was sick, and not permitted to leave the dreary halls of Grandfather’s mansion.

“Ye ‘tink Da’ll let me keep one?” Michael was inquiring cheerfully to the unlikely owner of the little animals; a thick-armed, red-haired Irishman, whose stout neck stretched ahead of his chest like a charging bull.

“There’nt no harm in asking.” He replied, down on one knee to gently scrub a wide fingertip over the kitten’s tiny head, the both of them abandoning Laurie to reminiscence until Michael let out a yelp of pain. Evidently intent on protecting her children, the mother had lashed out with fearsomely hooked claws, gouging a strip of flesh off the boy’s palm.

Displaying unusual childhood imperviousness to the sight of blood, he simply sucked the wound into his mouth as they made their way back to the cellars, only to be waylaid by several other boys who had built some form of hill out of rag piles and clods of loose dirt, which from which they attempted to attack and defend by hurling small pebbles at the opposing force.

A little alarmed at the casual brutality (not to mention the colorful oaths being exchanged by the children, many of whom would, in his own life, still be under the charge of governesses) Laurie retreated back to their quarters by himself, only to find Vallon seated on the only trustworthy chair in the place, carefully whetting a long, sword-like blade.

“Ye’re an early riser, sir.” the Irishman noted, no more distracted from his task than if he had been darning a woolen sock.

“It was only – your son wanted to visit a neighbor.”

It seemed the nearest enough polite approximation that Laurie could make, and Vallon chuckled.

“Ye make it sound all very distinguished, lad – but there’s no need tae put on airs to hide the matter, if ye think we’re savages.”

Laurie blushed a little, for in fact that very thought had occurred to him, hypocritical though it was. He’d experienced enough rude stares and impertinent questioning on his arrival in Concord, as though every member of it’s blasted Society expected him to display some obscene barbarian war dance, to hope that he was above drawing similar conclusions about others – but it seemed he had deceived himself.

“I – please, I didn’t mean to offend –“ he began, but Vallon was already shaking his head with a smirk.

“If I took offense at every thoughtless word, ‘alf my men would be in shallow graves now. Besides, you’re worth too pretty a penny to damage – and my son’d miss ye, at that.”

Laurie managed a weak but honest smile.

“He’s a pleasant child…”

“Ye mean he hasn’t let ye draw breath since the day ye came to us?” Vallon muttered, still smirking in a knowing fashion. “Michael always longed fer a brother – just another o’ my fatherly failings.”

Laurie had been about to deny any wrongdoing, out of habit, but the rusted metal door was suddenly kicked open with a creak, and in hobbled the stooped old woman, leaning heavily on her walking stick with one lined hand, the other clutching the handle of a black iron kettle. Her pig lumbered behind as always, tethered to her waist.

“Auch, ye can’t ask an auld hag tae work ‘erself to the bone for ye, Vallon!” she barked, with a manner that forcibly recalled Jo’s formidable great aunt.

“Wot’re ye standing there fer, lad? ‘Elp a feeble woman, fer ‘oly Mary’s sake!”

Laurie obeyed hurriedly, lugging the pot from her grip and onto the vast wooden chest that served for a table and everything else besides. An old woman she might have been, but certainly not feeble, and he had no doubt that the six large knives she wore on a thick leather belt were not intended for cooking.

Setting aside his weaponry, Vallon had strode to her side and, catching up one hand with the air of a courtier, patted her bony knuckles fondly.

“An’ who else am I to trust not tae poison me, Shelagh?”

Glancing into the pot with a grimace, Laurie wondered that father and son hadn't been poisoned long before, given the inedible mess that their cook-neighbor delivered twice a day. A pile of diced potatoes, suet, and liver sat at the bottom of the kettle, drowning in butter, while vast puddles of grease floated on the surface like melted wax.

Although, he considered with reluctance, it was better than going hungry, as their pre-communion fast on Sundays had taught him soon enough.

He was spared any more thought on the meal by Michael’s sudden return from battle, victory evident in his flint-toothed little smile.

“Bless’d Mary an’ Saint Joseph, laddie – what’ve ye been at?” the old woman croaked in exasperation, for the child was plastered in dirt and lumps of manure, from each palm to the half-worn knees of his trousers. A grainy black smear covered one cheekbone, and some fortunate enemy missile seemed to have struck it’s mark on the bridge of his nose, as a stream of congealing blood was trickling down his face towards his chin.

For a moment, Vallon managed to affect a stern posture, muscular arms crossed as he glared expectantly at his son, while Shelagh delivered a rambling lecture, continuing with faded intensity even after she ambled out into the corridor, her club foot dragging a little behind.

The moment she took her leave, his disapproving expression broke into a fond grin, and Laurie’s confusion at the duplicity of a man who had only moments before been sharpening a broadsword was somewhat alleviated as Vallon caught his boy gently by the ear and pressed a kiss to a somewhat more clean patch of his forehead.

“A glorious battle, son?”

“We licked ‘em, Da –! Johnny an’ me, we fed ‘em dere arses –!” Micahel crowed triumphantly, his green eyes bright, and he kept up a wildly excited account of the scrape, blow for blow, as he was shooed into the corner for Laurie to begin scrubbing him down.

Once the last few rags, caked with mud, had been tossed back into the washbasin – a chipped, curiously feminine china piece painted with dog-roses – they were called back to the breakfast table, where Vallon muttered a brief blessing, resting one large hand on Michael’s head, before raising the silver medallion that the boy always wore around his neck on a bit of twine.

“Now son - who’s that?” he barked sharply, nodding to the figure depicted in relief on the trinket.

“Saint Michael!” the boy replied confidently.

“And what did he do?”

“He cast Satan out of Paradise!”

“Good boy.” Vallon smiled, and with the odd little catechism complete, proceeded to saw off several pieces of brown potato bread from a loaf that seemed to have the precise consistency of a block of wood.

“I ‘ear ye’ve paid a visit tae Monk’s new brood?”

Instantly, Michael launched into a fervent and besotted account of the tenement’s newborn cats, his thrashing in the corridors evidently forgotten.

As the boy spoke animatedly, Laurie watched the pair with a kind of wonder. For all that they lived in the bowels of a slum, where fighting with fists and steel was a necessity of life and not a mere tale of battlefield glories, they had built an existence no less loving and worthwhile than his own among the Massachusetts gentry, or in Vevay, or even Milan. Despite the world’s view of them as untamable animals, they were thinking, feeling men, simply looking to survive.

“Eat, lad – there’ll be nae more ‘til supper.” Vallon addressed him suddenly, pushing a slab of dry bread across the table.

“C’mon, do as yer told.” came a somewhat muffled addition from Michael, speaking as he was around a mouthful of greasy potato, and with a contrite nod to his hosts, Laurie obediently scooped up some of the butter enveloped sludge onto his bread and downed it with courage.


End file.
